A Beginner’s Guide to Krark-Clan Ironworks

Matt Nass has Top 8’d the last three Grand Prix and won two of them with one of Modern’s most talked-about decks: Krark-Clan Ironworks combo. While many had initially dismissed the deck, it’s proven more resilient and powerful than initially estimated, even showing up in the Top 4 of Pro Tour 25 in the hands of Ben Stark. With that finish, KCI cemented itself as a pillar of the Modern format, and I figured it was about time to bite the bullet and learn the deck myself. And with a PPTQ Top 8 of my own to show for it, I’m sad I didn’t pick up this pile of Scrap Trawlers and Myr Retrievers sooner.

While the variety of loops and interactions can be daunting to anyone sleeving up their Buried Ruins for the first time, the gameplay truly comes down to remembering your triggers. In my opinion, the most important card in the deck is Scrap Trawler – it lets you dig through the deck by returning one-mana cards like Chromatic Star from your two-mana digging spells like Mind Stone. A Scrap Trawler and a KCI can usually be enough to find all the right combo pieces, as you recur draw spells like Terrarion and sacrifice Ichor Wellsprings. The number of artifacts that you can play and “cycle” through to draw through your deck is the real source of the deck’s resilient power. Like Tron, your cards are either mana-producers, must-answer threats (or in KCI, combo pieces) or cards that dig you to those things.

Other Important Interactions

One of the most important, unintuitive plays you can make is to overpay for mana costs. This means that when you are announcing your intent to cast a card, you have the option to sacrifice artifacts to KCI to pay for that card. If you sacrifice, say, a Myr Retriever and a Scrap Trawler to pay, they will go to the graveyard at the same time and be able to return each other.

If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em

KCI’s power comes from its ability to fight through the variety of hate cards in the format. Decks such as Humans, Grixis Death’s Shadow, Infect, and other combo decks with early interaction and a fast clock are able to slow you down so that you don’t have time to fight through. An early piece of interaction such as a Leyline of the Void or a Damping Sphere doesn’t matter if you give the KCI player enough time to potentially draw Nature’s Claim, which is brought in in nearly every post-board game. It’s important to follow up that piece of interaction with a fast clock, such as 7/7 Death’s Shadow or a Collected Company infinite damage combo.

While KCI is extremely powerful and resilient, it’s not infallable. In fact, I believe that the metagame is already shifting to fight against the Ironworks menace. That being said, if you become proficient at navigating the many intricate decisions that the deck requires you to make, you can fight through a lot of the hate that they’re going to throw at you. I, for one, have no plans to put down my Myr Retrievers any time soon.

A Spike at heart, Chantelle spends her free time prepping for tournaments, working toward the ever-elusive Mythic Championship, and championing other competitive ladies. She’s a combo aficionado and seasoned aggro deck player, and Standard and Modern are her preferred formats. Growing and improving as a player, both technically and in her mental game, are of the utmost importance to her.